Alexander Dumas: The Pioneer

Alexandre Dumas is a man who lived his life in a time when racism ran quite rampant. Today, Dumas is known by his constant work toward a literary movement that is recognized even today. Dumas frowned upon an era known today as the “Age of Wit” ("Introductory Lecture on the Neoclassical Period in English Literature”) and advocated a new writing style, which managed to grow prominent throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.. Despite his racial and writing criticisms, Alexandre Dumas engages his readers with this Romantic, yet adventurous style and was a pioneering author in the Romantic Movement.

The beginnings of Dumas’ life took place in a time in which Neoclassicism was the dominant writing style. Neoclassicism was a movement that began prior to Romanticism that focused on the glorification of the more distant, Roman past and attempted to suppress the immediate past ("Introductory Lecture on the Neoclassical Period in English Literature”). This became the first great age of literary criticism and also advocated journalism ("Introductory Lecture on the Neoclassical Period in English Literature”), where the main focuses during were emotional restraint, order, logic, technical precision, balance, and decorum (“What Is Romanticism?”). This movement, however, was toppled by the Romantic Movement, beginning with the publishing of Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth in 1798 ("Introductory Lecture on the Neoclassical Period in English Literature”). However, in the 1830s, the French Revolution began to dominate the country (“Alexandre Dumas”). This caused the uplifting of press censorship (“Alexandre Dumas”). Unfortunately, Dumas began to suffer from constant “bullying” by the press due to the fact that he was black. He was subject t...

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